The Ethics and Literature of Cybernetic Posthumanism, Transhumanism and the Technological Other in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Baelo-Allué, Sonia

En : Handbook of Literary Criticism and Ethics
2026
Brill Leiden
ISBN: 978-90-04-71551-6
Pp: 616-640

Abstract: This chapter explores cybernetic posthumanism, transhumanism and their changing visions on technology and techno-human assemblages resulting from the scientific advances of the fourth industrial revolution in which physical, biological and digital technologies converge. The chapter focuses on the emerging ethics resulting from the posthuman understanding of the self in which traditional binaries are challenged and a new sense of agency and identity results from the blurring of the human and non-human machine other. It also examines the different ways in which contemporary literature has engaged in the complex ethical debates and dilemmas that come with human enhancement, distributed cognition and artificial intelligence, and that emerge from the present understanding of posthuman identity.

Nota: This chapter has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICIN/AEI) and the European Regional Development Fund (DGI/ERDF) (code PID2022-137627NB-I00); and by the Government of Aragón (DGA) and the European Social Fund (ESF) (code H03_23R).

DOI: 10.1163/9789004715516_028